TD2089
by aquanautical
Summary: The Priam is a search and rescue vessel conducting a welfare check on the Daedalus, a mining vessel that has failed to send their weekly report. While en route the Priam picks up a disturbing message of unknown origin from the Daedalus defying explanation. The Priam crew must now locate the source of that terrifying communication while they search for survivors.


I am writing this log in the hopes that the folly of my final voyage will serve as a lesson and warning to mankind. It is not a pleasant tale to recall and one few will believe, but it is one that needs to be told. Man's conquest of space has opened the doors to new wonders never before imagined, but like Eve tasting the forbidden fruits of the Garden, the treasures of the stars do not come without consequence.

My name is Edward Turing, I am a search and rescue engineer employed by the UNSC on the rescue vessel Priam. As a part of my profession I have experienced a number of disturbing and often graphic events. While most missions are as simple as a welfare check on a colony that has had its communications array damaged, some are more violent in nature. Pirates, disease, and structural failure resulting in explosive decompression are not unusual to experience in this line of work. What I experienced on the Daedalus could not be explained by any of the usual culprits, if indeed, it can be explained at all. I will do my best to faithfully recall what I found on that mining station, in hopes of dissuading those that would hope to return.

Our crew received news on August 20th, 2174 that the Daedalus had not submitted their weekly report expected on August 16th and that all attempts to hail the station had been met with radio silence. We were to conduct a standard welfare check on the station. The Daedalus was a remote mining operation concerned with pulling niridium from the core of the asteroid TD2089. The path of TD2089 had recently brought the asteroid within a half lightyear from the outer colonies, prompting the UNSC to dispatch the Daedalus as a research and mining vessel on January 30th, 2174. The Daedalus has a crew of 18 consisting of 6 flight officers, 10 mining and geology experts, and 2 medical personnel.

The crew of the rescue vessel Priam consists of Captain Elliot Wilson, myself serving as chief engineer and first mate, medical officer Justin Meeks, pilot Audrey Meeks, and second engineer Anna Harris. The crew, excluding Anna Harris, has operated together for four years without issue. Prior to our assignment on the Priam, the captain and I worked together on the research ship Cassandra for several years. Anna Harris joined the crew after our initial second engineer was promoted to head engineer of the Pericles. In her 6 months of service with the current crew Anna has proven herself capable and has been accepted into our tight-knit crew as one of our own. Since my assignment to the Priam we have successfully completed over 40 deep space search and rescue missions in the outer colonies, with the Meeks having completed dozens more on the ship prior to my assignment to the vessel.

The Priam itself is a standard search and rescue ship commissioned by the UNSC, this means it is equipped with a large depot housing supplies necessary for repairs on essential systems as well as a bay equipped with 15 hypersleep chambers to allow for the rescue of stranded space-farers whose vessels cannot be repaired. The ship also feature quadruple the engine power of a standard vessel its size so adrift vessels can be towed to safety with ease.

Our ship was stationed near the Nereides colony at the frontier of inhabited space. Upon receiving the message regarding the Daedalus we set out posthaste towards TD2089. The trip to TD2089 would take three days to complete and throughout the journey we set our comms to send a repeating message to the Daedalus in hopes of making contact prior to our arrival. The repeating comm was our standard call and played as follows:

" _This is the search and rescue vessel Priam, UNSC has made repeated attempts to hail your vessel and has not received a response. We will arrive by August 23 at 1100 hours. If you are able to respond please provide more information regarding the status of your vessel and crew."_

For two days the message repeated without response. Near 1900 on August 22 the radio silence was broken by the Daedelus. Anna was monitoring our comms at that point and at the beginning of the transmission she ran to the mess hall to get me from where I was eating dinner. She was convinced the Daedalus' communications array was malfunctioning because of the noises coming from the station. Upon arriving on the bridge I could understand her concern, the whine coming from the speaker was certainly no sound sent by the crew of the Daedalus, at least intentionally.

The sound spitting through the speaker was an eerie high pitched tone that gave the impression it was falling while never actually doing so, intermittently a weird garbled noise sounding closer to human grunts was heard over the tone. We began to theorize that it was likely the Daedalus having faultily repaired their comms array and attempting to respond to our hail. We had figured the high pitched not-quite descending tone was background noise and the garbled noise had to be the message they intended us to receive.

Our speculation was cut short when the high pitched whine suddenly cut short and a terrifyingly inhuman voice chanted:

 _"R'luh Phtoph ilyaa h'gnaiih, ch'shogg, lw'nafh n'gha"_

After the sinister message completed the line went dead with no trace of the eerie whine. Upon hearing the guttural noises from the alien voice my heart flew into a panic and Anna let out a small whimper. Not wanting to decipher the meaning of the terrible sound alone we ran to the mess hall to get Captain Wilson and the Meeks'. We then reviewed the audio recording together in the bridge. When we replayed the message our initial thoughts were confirmed, whatever language was being spoken in the message was not one of human origin. After scanning, analyzing, and even trying to transcribe the message our data bank brought forth no explanation, not even anything remotely resembling the guttural speech.

The scan of the recording did reveal that the speaker was not an alien as I had convinced myself but in fact was a human. This did little to ease my mind, if the voice had been alien in origin we would have called UNSC and had them deploy a military vessel to explore the mining station. Because the voice did in fact belong to a human we were still obligated to perform our duties.

We all sat on the bridge for some hours speculating what may be transpiring on the Daedalus. Clearly the Daedalus' comms array was functioning, the message was sent from TD2089 and made in a human voice so our optimistic hopes of something as simple as a broken comms array were no longer feasible. Also because the voice was of human origin the idea that there was a serious structural failure on the Daedalus seemed unlikely if someone was currently alive and able to operate their comms. This led us naturally to the conclusion that piracy must be to blame and that the message must have been from a pirate.

Piracy while uncommon is not unheard of in the outer edges of the colony. Pirate attacks on colonial supply shipments happen with intermittent frequency, but an attack on research or mining vessels under the authority of the UNSC had never been recorded until now. We attempted to justify our hypothesis remarking on the black market value of niridium and the value of the Daedalus itself, being a rather large mining vessel it was well equipped and sure to fetch a hefty price.

There were two issues with this theory that we could not reconcile. First, why would the pirate be speaking in a completely unknown language? While new dialects had developed in colonies over time they were all very well documented, as far as the UNSC was concerned every human language ever spoken was within their database. Second, why would pirates still be on the vessel that had lost contact 6 days earlier? It would make no sense for any pirates to still be present in the area, they would have fled with their loot hours after their initial contact with the Daedalus if they followed the patterns of any of the previous pirates the Priam crew had encountered.

We eventually retired to our cabins from the bridge, still unsettled from what we had heard but happy enough with our own weak explanation. That night I slept fitfully waking several times, uneasy about our impending visit to the source of that fiendish sound and terrified that we might find the speaker.

We awoke the next morning at 0600 to prepare for the upcoming exploration. After a quiet breakfast Captain Wilson gathered us for a mission briefing at 0700 to further review the schematics of the Daedalus and the most recent scans of the mine shafts of TD2089. It appeared that the Daedalus had found a significant niridium deposit in the north eastern quarter of asteroid and that the crew had set up a small mining camp above the shaft. Captain Wilson informed us we were to first visit the Daedalus proper to see if there were any crew present. If no crew were found we were then to check on the mining outpost and eventually in the mine itself, as it had a sealed atmosphere survivors could be present in.

By 1000 we had TD2089 in view on the monitors. The nickel colored body was in the dome-ish shape of a Musgam mud hut and streaked with dark black fault lines. The Daedalus' reports indicated that it was mostly stony silicate rock with a significant amount of harder metals buried within, niridium being notable among them. By 1030 we could see the Daedalus and by 1045 we were able to spot the mining camp, both appeared fully intact with no evidence of any structural failure. We did note that no lights were visible through the solitary viewing window of the bridge, which was strange because the outside lights were on, ruling out a power failure.

Audrey took the Priam in for an exploratory orbit around TD2089 at 1055. While circling we noted that the "flat" end of the dome was speckled small caves that seemed too uniform to have occurred naturally. While staring at the hollows when my eyes would focus on one opening in particular it seemed that there would be motion from the other openings in my peripheral view, but every time I would attempt to track the motion my eyes would find nothing but more empty black holes on the dark gray surface.

We double checked with the Daedalus's mining reports for any record of these caves. After finding that the Daedalus's logs had none the feeling of unease on the bridge was palpable. Anna suggested we call UNSC and ask for an additional salvage ship to err on the side of caution. Captain Wilson ruled out the idea, as there was no justification for waiting several days for another ship to arrive while there could still be survivors.

By 1115 we docked with the Daedalus, Audrey was to stay on the ship while the rest of us would go in as the boarding party. Both myself and Captain Wilson carried non lethal stunning tubes in case of an encounter with any lingering pirates. Strangely when we boarded, the lights were on inside the docking bay despite them having appeared off from the outside. The docking bay was empty but otherwise completely normal, we did note that one of the walk-suits used for external repairs was missing. From the docking bay we next entered the mess hall.

The lights were also on in the mess hall, this further added to our confusion. At this point we radioed Audrey asking her to double check the external windows, she confirmed that the Daedalus's bridge window still appeared to be dark from the outside. While confused about this we were grateful to have light onboard while we conducted our search.

There were three trays of food that appeared to have been abandoned mid meal indicating whatever had happened caught the crew unaware. There was dinner fare on the plates so we assumed they had been left to sit since at least the evening of August 15th, 8 days prior.

At either end of the mess hall there was a door, one leading to the crew quarters and mining bay where the heavy machinery is kept and the other heading toward the bridge and labs. We headed toward the door leading to the bridge as we were hoping to find answers regarding the communication that had been sent to us the previous day. In the hallway towards the bridge we found the first terrifying hints of what was to come.

Several splotches of brown red dried blood were present on the floor of the hallway, they appeared to be partial footprints heading back towards the mess hall. We doubled back and confirmed that the prints were also present in the mess hall, albeit faintly enough that we had missed it on our first pass. The tracks headed towards the other door in the mess hall that led to the crew quarters and mining bay. We paused briefly to discuss whether or not to pursue the tracks, however the decision was made to check the bridge first before tracking the footprints any further.

We returned to the hall leading to the bridge and noted that tracks were much fuller the nearer we approached the bridge door. We attempted to open the bridge door and found that the control panel was not responding. Audrey and myself then used the soldering kit we had brought to crack open the panel to disable the lock on the door so that we could pry it open. What we found when we finally opened the door should have been enough to make us leave immediately.

The smell that bloomed from the open door was surreal, a disgusting mix of decaying odors and a strong unknown scent of that can be best described as malign and ancient. Blood was everywhere, no longer glossy but dried and caked on the floor in an impossible amount that seemed to have come from dozens of people. Myself and Anna heaved violently from the sight and smell. Captain Wilson and Justin being of stronger stomach dared to venture inside first.

When we entered the bridge we found the answer to the Daedalus's bridge window mystery. The full viewing window of the bridge had been completely caked with blood that had now dried into a dark brown tint. In addition to the obscured bridge window there were also numerous long bloody streaks deliberately made on the walls of the room in a strange repeated pattern we could make no sense of. Upon further examination of the room we found the remains of two bodies completely torn apart and seemingly devoid of blood. We tried to venture a guess at what may have caused this type of bodily harm but could provide no explanation as the wounds on the victims appeared to be caused by human hands but no human should have been strong enough to dismember two people barehanded. We ran quick scans on the blood we found on the bridge window and caked and found that the only blood present was from the two bodies. The scans also provided the identities of the victims: Jason West, one of the ship's medical personnel, and Joselyn Kelly, the ship's communications officer.

Having gathered my composure from the initial assault on the senses I ventured to check on the communications array. The console had been smashed completely and the dents in the metal appeared to have a knuckled pattern much like a human fist, again we were left completely dumbfounded.

Anna checked the other consoles to see if there was a video log or record of what may have happened. She found an internal report on the first mate's console that detailed the exploration of the outside mine shaft. Apparently they had found a sort of tunnel in the shaft and had sent additional crew to assist in excavating. From this log we were able to determine that 14 of the ships 18 crew members had been sent to the mining camp to assist with excavations. Of the four to remain on the ship Jason West and Joselyn Kelly were now accounted for but Wendell Bush the first mate and Sarah McGuinness the junior communications officer were still missing. We assumed that the bloody footprints leading to the crew quarters likely belonged to one of them.

By this time I had been able to salvage the hard drive from the communications array and with it the video logs of the ship. After connecting the drive to one of the functioning terminals we were able to view the recordings. We found the time of the attack to be 1920 on August 15th.

The video sequence began with all four of the crew remaining on the Daedalus entering the bridge hurried. The video logs lacked audio but from the flashing lights in the bridge an alarm was clearly going off. The video shows all four huddled around the communications array and with Joselyn Kelly speaking hastily into the receiver, whatever discussion they were having appeared to have a dramatic effect on on Sarah McGuinness who moved towards the back of the room bawling intensely. During this time Wendell Bush's behavior took a notable change, he went from engaged and huddled with the other two at the console to standing erect unmoving. The expression on Wendell's face changed from one of concern to a placid mask. He stood still for 3 minutes while the other two frantically worked the console speaking quickly into the receiver and waiting for the response.

After the third minute Wendell calmly bent over the other two and slammed their heads into the console below in a fluid motion that caved in their skulls like so much wet cardboard. Sarah screamed and immediately bolted from the bridge to the hall, Wendell did not react to her screaming or departure and instead set about the gruesome dismemberment of his two victims. We watched as he tore open their bodies with the surreal strength of his bare hands. We sped up the video loop at this point and watched disgusted as Wendell used the remains to paint the windows red and then set about making the bizarre repeating pattern on the walls. This prompted us to further inspect the patterns on the wall to see if we could figure out what message Wendell was trying to convey. After second review Justin made a startling discovery, he noted the small serifs on the lines and that the streaks were actually letters from the latin alphabet too stretched and bizarrely drawn to be obvious. Upon deciphering the letters we made out the following message:

 **R'luh Phtoph ilyaa h'gnaiih, ch'shogg, lw'nafh n'gha**

We all had the clear realization this was the proper transcription of the message that we had received the day prior. We returned to the video log to review the remaining days from Wendell's attack to the present.

After Wendell completed his frantic scribblings of the cryptic message he seemed to completely lose purpose. We watched as he stood for days without moving, it was unsettling, we could find no wavering in his posture nor any indication that he so much as blinked over the course of the week from 2015 on August 15th until 1900 on August 22nd. Justin could provide no explanation for this behavior, he explained that even in the most extreme cases of psychosis this type of sudden mental break and superhuman endurance had never been recorded. At this point we searched Wendell's medical logs for any indication of mental instability but found nothing abnormal.

At 1900 August 22nd we saw Wendell move to the communications console and respond to the Priam's looped recording. This is when Anna heard the eerie almost descending high pitched tone and ran to find me. We then see Wendell lean into the receiver and speak, the logs indicate this was the same time we head the gruesome message, we had found the source of that monstrous chant.

Immediately after speaking the message Wendell viciously pounded on the communications console rendering it in its current unusable state. He then turned heel and walked through the back of the bridge leaving the weak trail of bloody footprints we had earlier spotted in his wake.

We radioed Audrey at this point to explain what we had witnessed and to have her begin compiling a report. We also had her check our computer terminals for the now properly transcribed message we had received as our initial attempts as transcription were grossly inaccurate, again the search showed nothing in the the UNSC database.

We returned the hallway, grateful to be away from the foetid stench of decay and that other more evil scent I could not place. We then took the door nearest to the bridge and entered the Daedalus' geology lab. The lab gave no indications that Wendell had been present and appeared completely in order. We did note that there were some strange rock samples present in the collecting trays in a multitude of colors and shapes not typically found on asteroids. There were several jade stones and many strangely shaped onyx rocks including one that appeared to have been carved into the shape of some sort of animal with a strange cylindrical body and rife with tentacles. The carving was grotesque in its brutal realism, this did not appear to be the work of an imaginative artist, but an accurate model of it's nightmarish subject matter. We took pictures of the samples and uploaded the lab's records to the Priam. Audrey confirmed for us that the carved figurine matched no records of any animals terrestrial or alien that the UNSC had encountered or any known artistic style, raising further questions about what the subject matter may be and the identity of the sculptor.

After clearing the lab we returned to the mess hall and Wendell's bloody trail. We moved to the hall leading to the crew quarters and mining bay, Wendell's bloody footprints had stopped halfway through the mess hall leaving us without a physical trail to follow. We made the decision to check on the crew quarters first as the mining bay would be our last stop before departing to the mine itself.

When we opened the door to the crew quarters we saw what I was sincerely hoping to avoid, Wendell. He was standing in the middle of the hall staring vacantly at the door in front of him softly chanting to himself that horrible phrase we had heard before: _R'luh Phtoph ilyaa h'gnaiih, ch'shogg, lw'nafh n'gha._ At first Wendell did not seem to acknowledge our presence seemingly oblivious to the two stun tubes currently trained on him by myself and Captain Wilson. At a loss on how to handle the situation Justin tried calling to him, at this Wendell finally took note of our presence. He stared and the vacant expression on his face turned to one of pure contempt as his gaze fell upon us. He then dropped to his haunches and charged us with animal fury while screaming his horrible chant: _R'LUH PHTOPH ILYAA H'GNAIIH, CH'SHOGG LW'NAFH N'GHA!_

Both me and the Captain fired our stun tubes in tandem at the charging man catching him in the leg with one and directly on the head with the other. He violently collapsed mid gallop and came to a sunken heap only a few feet from us. Justin then went about checking the man's vital signs and doing a brief medical evaluation. From what he could tell Wendell had not eaten or drank anything since the interrupted meal 8 days ago, he also had huge welts on his hands from where he pounded the communications console and very clearly broken knuckles. Shortly after the doctor's examination of Wendell began, Wendell's heart rate began rapidly climbing and promptly flat lined. Justin attempted to resuscitate Wendell several times to no avail.

We left Wendell where he had dropped and continued our search of crew's quarters. While calling for Sarah we heard a weak groan and fumbling of the door that Wendell had been stationed in front of. I hurried to open the door and found Sarah McGuinness looking emaciated and distraught but otherwise showing none of the signs of the hysteria that Wendell had succumbed to. Sarah told us that after she witnessed Wendell murder Jason and Joselyn on the bridge she fled to the crew's quarters and barricaded herself in her room to wait for help. After the third day she had ventured to the docking bay to retrieve a walk suit so that she could use one of the open air rovers in the mining bay to make it to the mining camp. After reaching the mining bay she had tried radioing the mining camp but there was no response. She then decided she was best off barricading herself back in the crew quarters until a rescue attempt could be mounted.

Sarah went on to tell us that yesterday night she heard Wendell approach her door and resume his horrible low chanting. Each of the crew chambers had its own sink/washroom area so she was able to safely avoid dehydration, but she was desperately in need of food and if she did not receive some sort of sustenance soon there were likely to be permanent health issues.

We took Sarah back to the Priam so that Justin could give her the medical attention she needed. While there we continued our with our questions in hopes she could help shed some light on what transpired at the mine 8 days ago and what may have caused Wendell to have his mental break. When asked about the mine she burst immediately into tears, through half sobs she explained to us that her husband was one of the miners and that the messages they had received on the night Wendell had his break had come from the mining foreman, Richard Plinkett. Plinkett had relayed to the bridge crew of the Daedalus that most of the mining team had gone missing, including Sarah's husband, and that strange high pitched noises had been coming from deep within the mine shafts. Plinkett's messages then became more unclear and garbled and eventually was replaced by only a high pitched whine, the description of which matched the not quite descending tone Anna had picked up on the Priam's console the day before.

After giving Sarah the appropriate medical attention, Justin put her in one of the extra hypersleep chambers so that she could rest undistracted from the horrors she had endured. Shortly after the crew convened and made the decision that the mining camp would need to be investigated. The original boarding party of myself, Captain Wilson, Justin, and Anna would head to the mining bay in walk-suits and take one of the open air rovers to the mine, a journey which should take no longer than an hour to complete.

We departed the priam and headed to the mining bay. The bay was untouched but missing the larger pressurized rover which was still at the mining camp. We used the walk-suits from the docking bay and picked two 6 passenger rovers in case the pressurized rover was in disrepair and we needed to evacuate survivors. We brought the remaining walk-suits from the docking bay and the one that Sarah McGuinness did not use, in total we had 6 additional suits with us to spare for any survivors we may encounter.

I drove one of the rovers with Justin as passenger while Captain Wilson and Anna rode in the other. The journey to the mining camp took roughly 25 minutes to complete over the pockmarked surface of TD2089. We kept silent throughout the ride, each of us all too aware of the horrors we may find at our destination. The base camp itself was a large warehouse lodging mining equipment with a small barracks and kitchen attached. Inside the warehouse was also the mouth of the mine shaft leading to the niridium veins below.

We approached the warehouse and entered through its bay doors at around 1430. After removing our walk-suits we were assaulted by the same ancient malign odor as on the bridge, only this time without the additional scent of decay so it was much more pronounced.

We checked the barracks and kitchen first and found no trace of any occupants. We then proceeded to scour the warehouse and found nothing missing save the normal drilling equipment that would likely be present in the shaft below. At this point much discussion was had about whether or not to proceed into the shaft, Anna was adamantly refusing to and near tears when we began to make our first movements towards the entrance. Captain Wilson allowed her to stay in the warehouse while myself, Justin and Captain Wilson would continue onwards into the mine. While moving towards the mine we noticed a number of large rectangular imprints made on the surface of the floor, almost as though an tank tread had passed into the mine, this did little to ease our minds about the journey ahead.

As we entered we saw nothing unordinary near the entrance of the mine and continued further along. The mine was illuminated by a single string of lights hanging overhead and down through the tunnel, the weak orange glow left much to be desired so we supplemented it with our own flashlights attached to the walk-suits. The tunnel itself was comfortably wide having been carved by a boring drill of immense walls of the mine were the same coarse gray of TD2089's surface but showed small glints of hidden metals when our flashlights would hit them at certain angles.

We continued along the tunnel for about 200 meters before finally hitting a fork in the tunnel. From our previous review of the tunnel's layout we knew the tunnel to the left was an abandoned path that had not found niridium in any significant amounts and that the tunnel to the right was where the mining crew had found the tunnel we had read about on the Daedalus's bridge. We resolved to check the dead end first and within 15 minutes we had cleared the abandoned section and were back at the fork.

We began down the right hand tunnel and immediately noticed a strengthening of the foul odor that had been ever present since arriving at the warehouse. The walls of this section of tunnel were much richer than the previous two showing the telltale glint of niridium wherever our flashlights would land. We progressed for 150 meters down the newer tunnel, along the way we found the machinery missing from the warehouse above fully intact with no evidence of damage. The end of the shaft appeared to open up into a much larger tunnel below, as we approached we realized this must have been the new tunnel the excavation had discovered.

We cautiously approached the opening at the end of the tunnel and peered inside, shocked at what we saw. The tunnel was not of natural origin, it had been carved from smooth black onyx as opposed to the stony gray rock of the tunnel above. The dim overhead lighting had been run through this tunnel as well revealing a series of bas reliefs carved into the tunnel walls depicting the same tentacled horrors the onyx carving had displayed. The artwork showed the tentacled monsters attending to an even more grotesque creature of indeterminable size that had to be their god. The absurd "god" had the body of an overly large peach with a great gaping mouth near the top, it was speckled with a indeterminable number of eyes and had as many tentacles to match.

The many limbed servants were shown sacrificing many animals to their god and the god in turn would consume the bloody libations and rest after a time. The biggest shock came not in the depiction of the servants and their god but of the familiarity of their sacrificial animals, their feathered depictions matching fossil records from the Triassic period of earth. This revelation stunned our party and we were sure to take many photographs of these horrible carvings of earthly origin.

As we progressed down the tunnel the scenes began change in their nature, different animals were being brought forth to the god, smaller weaker animals matching the records of some of the first successful mammals, the god seemed to stop accepting these libations after a time and appeared in the same pose for the next several reliefs indicating inaction.

The next series of scenes appeared to be some sort of burial rites for the god conducted by its many armed servants. The servants were depicted closing the many eyes of their god and sealing him in a beautifully lavish tomb carved in ornate asymmetrical patterns. The servants were shown being buried alongside their master like as Egyptian servants would attend to their pharaohs in death. The final depictions on the wall as we reached the end of the chamber depicted the tomb seemingly floating through space in what seemed to be a huge orbit around the center of the galaxy. The curious difference being instead of black holes being depicted as the center of the galaxy there was a horrible tentacled mass that showed a noticeable resemblance to the entombed god in its orbit.

As we approached the end of the tunnel the terrible wafting stench increased in intensity, and came close to making us physically ill. We exited the onyx tunnel and entered an unlit great hall carved from onyx again but with patterns beautifully embroidered in jade and gold crawling along the walls. The round room was enormous with a ceiling reaching 25 meters and a diameter of 75 meters, our flashlights could barely make out the other side but we established that there were two very large sealed doors on the other end of the room.

When we made our way into the room the stench of decay began to mingle with that ancient foetid odor. The source of the decay was lying directly in the center of the room, the 14 missing crew members were all present lying dead in the center of a large carved pattern in the middle of the great hall. We checked their bodies and the cause of death was the same for all 14, a precisely cut jugular vein. The method of death matched the sacrifices the tentacles servants made for their gods as depicted on the bas relief.

Myself, Captain Wilson, and Justin took this time to collectively panic. I will admit that I lost control of myself and was frantically trying to find some sort of alternative to the horrifying truth with my crew mates. Unfortunately our panic was cut prematurely short by a familiar sound, the same horrifying high pitched noise we had heard on the Priam and that Sarah and Wendell had heard on the bridge of the Daedalus.

My initial instinct was to flee, get to the top of the mine and back to the Priam as quickly as humanly possible and Captain Wilson was in full agreement with my course of action. Justin however was frozen and staring completely vacant faced in the direction of one of the two doors of the great hall. Our realization was immediate, the captain and I both hit Justin with our stunning tubes and he collapsed. We then picked him up and began to hurry as quickly as we could back through the onyx tunnel.

Halfway through the onyx tunnel we heard a noise that made our hearts drop, it sounded like one of the doors in the great hall was being opened. At this we frantically hastened our pace as best we could down the remainder of the tunnel and made it back to the stony original tunnels. As we were passing the machinery we heard a sickly continuous splattering noise coming through the onyx tunnel below that seemed to be gaining on us.

We made it to the fork in the tunnel by the time the abomination lifted itself from the tunnel below. In full the creature was 10 feet tall with its horrible cylindrical body littered with tentacles seemingly at random. The ghastly grey white monster writhed its tentacles in a lapping pattern against the floor to move its significant mass after them. It was gaining steadily on us down the tunnel as we were encumbered by Justin's weight.

At this point I used the radio on my walk-suit to contact Anna and tell her to have one of the rovers prepared so we can make quick retreat from the writhing mass of tentacles in pursuit of us. We continued down the hallway losing ground as we heaved Justin's weight.

We made it to the entrance of the mine-shaft before it was on us. Captain Wilson and I both frantically fired our stun tubes at the fleshy monster but they seemed to have no affect on its otherworldly movement. The tentacled horror reached for us and was able to get a hold on Captain Wilson's leg, the impossible strong beast snapped the leg in its constricting grasp with little resistance. It then lifted the screaming captain and retreated the way it had come. I attempted to chase after the beast continuously firing my stun tube at it but to no avail. The Captain, screaming over the noise, ordered me to run to the Priam and get off of TD2089. This was the last I saw of my friend Captain Wilson, I can only assume he met the same end as the crew of the Daedalus.

I returned to the top of the shaft and dragged Justin to the rover. Anna was ghostly white in the driver's seat and fitted Justin's helmet to his suit. We made the journey back to the Daedalus while I recounted what had happened to Audrey and Anna. Upon reaching the Daedalus we moved as quickly as we could manage to the Priam.

When we were aboard the Priam I ordered an emergency launch and Audrey took us back towards Nereides and the safety of colonized space. When we were clear of TD2089 I fastened Justin to the hospital bed in the med bay using twice as many straps as were necessary. If he awoke in a state similar to Wendell it would be best if he were contained.

Justin awoke at 2000 that day, while dull eyed and confused he exhibited none of the aggression that Wendell had shown so we deemed it safe to unstrap him. Throughout the next hour as he recovered he began to remember the events of the tunnel and importantly the high pitched whine that had incapacitated him.

He was certain that the whine was some sort of data transfer happening on a level our sensors could not pick up, as he now knew things about the horrible creatures from which we had narrowly escaped. He told of how the servants and god had once lived on earth feasting in the riches of young earth before the K-T extinction event. After the extinction event the god was no longer finding suitable nourishment from the sacrifices the servants had brought him and eventually fell into a deep deathlike sleep.

The servants, still dedicated to their master, built an enormous tomb for him where they joined him in his slumber. The tomb was to pass through the void of space awaiting the awakening of their master, upon whence they would return to the earth. Justin was also able to translate the guttural chant that Wendell had repeated:

" _R'luh Phtoph ilyaa h'gnaiih, ch'shogg, lw'nafh n'gha"_

" _Hidden Phtoph awaits its father, traveling through the void, dreaming of death"_

We pressed Justin for more details about the tomb, the monsters, whatever we could think to ask. He explained that the mysterious caverns on the underside of TD2089 were actually some sort of engine designed to set the tomb on a desired course, they had remained closed while the god was asleep but after the servants were awoken they had reopened them. When asked if the god had awoken Justin thankfully confirmed that as far as he was aware Phtoph still slumbered. It seemed the servants were disoriented from their long slumber and instinctually felt the need feed their master and that it would take Phtoph's father to awaken the sleeping god.

This news shook me to my core, one of these monsters was more than the universe should have to bear, the fact that there were at least two and that they were capable of reproduction terrified my very soul. I tentatively raised the question of who Phtoph's sire was and even Justin who had been relatively calm throughout the interview went pale.

He told us that we had already seen Phtoph's father, he was the horrible tentacled mass depicted in the center of the galaxy on the final bas relief in the onyx cave. He is the blind idiot, the daemon sultan, his name is Azathoth.

Since this journey I have given up spacefaring and instead have relocated to the Luna colony outside of earth. I hope this tale will encourage more to make similar decisions, as man is not yet ready to explore the horrors of the universe.


End file.
